1. pNFS Birds-of-Feather FAST 2010: February 24 Sorin Faibish, EMC and pNFS friends

2. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 2 Outline What is pNFS? pNFS Timeline Standards Status Industry Support Q&A

3. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 3 What is pNFS? pNFS protocol standardized: NFSv4.1 Storage-access protocol files (NFSv4.1) blocks (FC, iSCSI, FCoE) objects (OSD2) Control protocol Outside of the pNFS standard pNFS protocol Control protocol Storage-access protocol Metadata Server Data Servers Client

4. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 4 pNFS Value Proposition Distributes data across storage cluster Eliminates or reduces load and capacity balancing And yes: can accelerate I/O

5. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 5 pNFS Layouts Client gets a layout from the NFSv4.1 server The layout maps the file onto storage devices and addresses The client uses the layout to perform direct I/O to storage At any time the server can recall the layout Client commits changes and returns the layout when it’s done pNFS is optional, the client can always use regular NFSv4.1 I/O Clients Storage NFSv4.1 Server layout

6. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 6 Client Apps Layout Driver pNFS Client Linux pNFS Client Transparent to applications Common client for different storage back ends Fewer support issues for storage vendors Normalizes access to clustered file systems pNFS Server Cluster File System 1.files (NFSv4.1) 2.objects (OSD2) 3.blocks (SCSI) 4.Future back ends … Control Protocol NFSv4.1 Layout grant & recall Storage Protocol

7. 7 NFSv4.1 – OpenSource Status Two OpenSource Implementations OpenSolaris and Linux (file, osd and block) OpenSolaris Client and Server Support only file-based layout Support for multi-device striping already present (NFSv4.1 + pNFS)‏ “Simple Policy Engine” for policy-driven layouts also in the gate Linux Client and Server Support files (NFSv4.1)‏ Support in progress blocks (SCSI), objects (OSD T10)‏ Client consists of generic pNFS client and “plug ins” for “layout drivers Windows NFSv4.1 Client from CITI - NEW

8. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 8 Timeline 2004 – CMU, NetApp and Panasas draft pNFS problem and requirement statementsproblemrequirement 2005 – CITI, EMC, NetApp and Panasas draft pNFS extensions to NFSpNFS extensions to NFS 2005 – NetApp and Sun demonstrate pNFS at ConnectathonNetApp and Sun demonstrate pNFS at Connectathon 2005 – pNFS added to NFSv4.1 draftpNFS added to NFSv4.1 draft 2006 - 2008 – specification baked Bake-a-thons, Connectathons 26 iterations of NFSv4.1/pNFS spec 2009 – RFC submitted (680 pages) 2010 – RFC published 2010 – Fedora 10 includes pNFS server/client gits and rpms (did you triy it yet?)

9. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 9 pNFS Standards Status NFSv4.1/pNFS were standardized at IETF NFSv4 working group (WG) All done including RFC 5661,3,4: WG last call (DONE) Area Director review (DONE) IETF last call (DONE) IESG approval for publication (DONE) IANA review (DONE) RFC publication (2010) Consists of several documents: RFC 5661 - NFSv4.1/pNFS/file layoutNFSv4.1/pNFS/file layout RFC 5662 - NFSv4.1 protocol description for IDL (rpcgen) compilerNFSv4.1 protocol description RFC 5663 - blocks layoutblocks RFC 5664 - objects layoutobjects RFC 5665 - netid specification for transport protocol independence (IPv4, IPv6, RDMA)netid specification

10. pNFS FAST09 BOF 2009-02-25 10 Industry Contributors to pNFS Standard BlueArc NetApp CITI Ohio SuperComputer Center CMU Panasas EMC Seagate IBM StorSpeed LSI Sun Microsystems

11. Traditional HPC Use Cases Seismic Data Processing / Geosciences' Applications Broadcast & Video Production High Performance Streaming Video Finite Element Analysis for Modeling & Simulation HPC for Simulation & Modeling Data Intensive Searching for Computational Infrastructures Application Server Racks FCoE NFS pNFS pNFS Ethernet Solution pNFS Server Storage Heads iSCSI / FC Network NFS iSCSI / FC

12. Questions – Client Technology When will a valid pNFS client be available? How does the parallel NFS block layout work? What’s an object layout, how do objects compare to blocks/files? How do current cluster file systems work with pNFS client and server? How is client access to data servers coordinated and controlled? Attendee Questions Encouraged…

13. Questions – Files, Blocks and Objects How many layout types can there be? How does pNFS make managing a lot of systems easier? Can my application control how its data is striped? When can we expect to see real pNFS performance, not vendor claims based on older technology? How can I use pNFS in an enterprise environment; would it support non-disruptive (NDU) upgrades? Attendee Questions Encouraged…

14. Questions – Data Management Can I retain data management practices I use today based on Snapshots and Volume replication? Can File, Object and Block layouts co-exist in the same storage network? Can a client use volumes accessed via each layout concurrently? I’m deploying a Unified Ethernet Fabric; how do I secure data access – files, blocks & objects? Attendee questions encouraged…

15. Questions – What else NFSv4.1 and pNFS what are the expectations compared to 4.0? What additional function do you want to see added to 4.1: FedFS Copy server side What would you like to see in NFSv4.2 additional to what is proposed: Sparse files Access Permissions